Faint
by So Fyren Says
Summary: In which Maedhros heals after Thangorodrim, and everyone else falls apart. The story of the Finwians from Maedhros return to Maedhros's abdication.
1. Chapter 1

Faint  
  
"We would make you a hand out of ivory and silver, stained with petals of crushed roses."  
  
"There's no need to kill for my hand. It is dead."  
  
The craftsman looked at their lord. His eyes were very sad.  
  
"Even a single rose..."  
  
"Do not deprive it of its petals. I see how everything has become more precious now."  
  
"But milord..."  
  
"Would you begrudge a lord without a hand and an ill-suited name?  
  
"You are yourself still...yet..."  
  
"Well?" The glance was terribly keen.  
  
"Lord Fingon bought the flowers over but they were already dead, for he carried them through Helcaraxe." Maedhros could not betray his astonishment. The craftman continued to speak. "He said, he brought them for you, they had been part of your begetting day present."  
  
-=-=  
  
Maedhros fainted they whispered. He was standing then he fell. He had not stirred in three days.  
  
"What was he doing?" Some asked.  
  
The mention of the pain of a missing hand, of pride, the mention of flowers...  
  
"No," the craftman said, coming amidst them, "I mentioned Fingon."  
  
Look, here he comes, Fingolfin's son. Look how pale his face is, look how his lip bleeds.  
  
"Maedhros," Fingon said, sitting by Maedhros's bedside, idly stroking an empty sleeve, "I am sorry."  
  
Maedhros opened his eyes at the voice, and closed them again. "I am sorry," he said.  
  
A tear slid down a still perfect cheek.  
  
"You remembered me on the Helcaraxe, I could not save you, I could not stop my father."  
  
Fingon leaned close to hear the slight voice.  
  
"I remembered you as you remembered me," answered Fingon, smoothing a hand over the smooth brow, his fingers tangling in the soft red hair.  
  
"I can't. I can't." Repeated Maedhros. The scent of Fingon's hair, the weight of a missing hand hurt him, and he was so tired being hurt.  
  
Fingon did not ask what because it did not matter. He took off his boots and his tunic, and slid into the space beside Maedhros, his right side.  
  
Gray eyes looked into each other, rimmed with glittering tears. Maedhros' left hand fell across Fingon's waist. Fingon brushed a tear away from the Feanorian cheek, cool and white like the snow.  
  
"Shush now, dear one, let us sleep, let us dream."  
  
-=-= "We are growing up," Maitimo says, looking pale and sharp.  
  
Telperion light spills down upon the grassy knoll, so on silver they sit with no trace of gold in sight.  
  
Findekano rests his head on Maitimo's shoulder, just the right height for him.  
  
"I know."  
  
And they are silent for a while.  
  
"It's not that..but..." Maitimo starts and stops. Frustrated, he takes a long copper braid, which is dark in the light, and begins to unweave it with his fingers.  
  
"Not that..." Findekano hesitates, and he can feel his heartbeats. Maitimo looks like Feanor when his hair is dark, but he is not Feanor. The wind carried Feanor's voice from the square of Tirion until it lapped at the border of Fingon's hearing.  
  
"Let's go somewhere." Maitimo stands, topples Findekano and extends a hand. "Here," he offered. Their eyes meet, Maitimo's eyes: gray and cool like the mist.  
  
"Where to?" Findekano stretches, the grass tickles his face. There's a faint warm breeze and the ground is soft. "I'm tired."  
  
"Anywhere," Comes the lofty reply. Then Maitimo bends down, his face hovering just so, "Let's go somewhere more comfortable then." Feanor's voice met Fingolfin's, the sound of Finwe's drowning both out.  
  
"I'm comfortable here," Fingon mutters, and suddenly, sits, before the other moves out of the way." Their breaths meet: warm and comfortable puffs.  
  
"I'm not going to leave you," He says, "They can quarrel their hearts out if they wish."  
  
"Right," Maitimo whispers back. His arms wraps around his cousin's form in a close embrace, something desperate. "And I shall not leave you, my own house or no."  
  
Findekano would never know what Maitimo means to speak, but Maitimo head dipped slightly and their lips meet, ever so briefly, enough that they look away from each other: only to stare again, a little later, at the soft blush upon the other's face. -=-=  
  
When the clouds of his dreams wandered apart Maedhros found Fingon's eyes staring curiously at him. A bead of something bright gleamed at the end of an eyelash. He reached up. Fingon started, but did not move away.  
  
"You were crying," Maedhros said.  
  
"I had to." Fingon replied. He drifted a finger over Maedhros's cheek. "You were crying."  
  
Maedhros sighed. "My eyes are old and dull without tears to paint them with light."  
  
"Isn't this," Fingon smiled sadly, "The story of our lives hereafter?"  
  
"I've always been prodigious."  
  
"Only of looks," Fingon ghosted a touch down the curve of a cheekbone to the pale distracting lips.  
  
Later they would say, Noldor's hearts turned when their humor turned: tears named as crystals and diamonds and other precious, lavish things.  
  
There was a harsh rustle at the entrance. The air's brisk outside.  
  
"Milord. Milords. Your father, your brothers await. "  
  
And then all is silent and warm.  
  
Another rustle, far softer now, an arm moving down a little under the blankets. Fingon's fingers upon Maedhros chest, a fingertip at a time.  
  
"Dear Fingon."  
  
"Dear Maedhros."  
  
"You will leave."  
  
"I shall, but I will it not."  
  
"Here's the story, of our lives ever after."  
  
And they laughed, Fingon's hand upon Maedhros's chest, and Maedhros's hand clutching it tight, they laughed.  
  
"We are so foresighted together."  
  
-=-=  
  
"Take heed, dear child," The elf said, and laid a slender perfect hand upon a copper head, "The world is different now, nothing is as it seems. NOTHING!"  
  
Startled out of a nightmare, Maedhros found his breath weak and rapid. He draws one deep and exhaled. He found Maglor's hazy eyes odd.  
  
"Where is Fingon?" He asked Maglor, whose newly awakened face suddenly seemed very worn.  
  
"Here." Fingon walks from the bed by the brazier and sits down on Maedhros bed. "How do you fare?"  
  
"As well and as ill as can be."  
  
"Then you must be better to answer me so. Dreams?"  
  
"Oh yes..dreams. "Maedhros mumurs, and brings Fingon's right hand against his face. If his cousin thought the gesture strange, he did not voice it. "Did you dream, upon Helcaraxe?" Maedhros traced the detail of the fine fold of skin between the thumb and forefinger. His own was quite awkward now. Feet and legs, arms and torso and face saved except for that mark of the house of Curufinwe..hands..hand...mutilated and distorted, and perhaps, the mind as well.  
  
"I held you to my dreams." Answered Fingon, though he could not tell Maedhros why. No one speaks of the madness of the ice, when emotions waver between passionate extremes. "They were dreams." Yet still only Valinorean dreams, the only kind they knew then.  
  
"I could not dream of you." Maedhros said. Though I tried. And now I do not wish to taint you with mine. He had learnt to dream differently upon Thangorodrim.  
  
-=-=  
  
Maglor slipped out and found Ambarussa listening intently outside, ears cocked to the night wind.  
  
"Will they be all right?" Maglor lifts a querulous eyebrow. "What do children know?"  
  
They?  
  
"Findekano and Maitimo," they replied, as if it is a natural thing, "As we are Ambarussa."  
  
"Brothers, that is an illusion of time. Maglor said. Think, will our Nolofinwe's people allow it?  
  
"They let him come." Ambarussa said pointedly.  
  
"Ah, but he was visiting a wounded friend, not a Feanorion."  
  
"When does a friend cease to be a Feanorion, when did a Feanorion cease to become a friend?" Maglor shrugged, aiming for nonchalance and failing. He knew it was true however. Feanorions will no longer have friends.  
  
There are some things that exist without being answers.  
  
"We are skeptical." Ambarussa replied, "Are not our bonds deepened through our deeds and should we not share our hearts?" Maglor shook his head sadly.  
  
"Those who you sacrifice for ultimately hates you at the end. It has always been so." He looks up, and decides, no, they shouldn't know that yet.  
  
-=-=  
  
Maedhros grimaced as lifted his legs out of the bed and stood, joints and muscle humming discordantly. The pain pulled sharp and fierce on his right arm. He had been sleeping on that side, forearm under the pillow.  
  
There was a food on the table, something thick and steaming in a bowl. I must be all right, he thought to himself as he ate, smiling wryly, tunic half-draped over bare chest, when food and warmth are had and enjoyed.  
  
"Russandol?" Fingon's voice came with the sound of his footsteps while his person arrived in time to see Maitimo wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin. "He had finished it, and you may hold a sword again." The morning light pushed into the room as the breeze fluttered the loosened flap.  
  
"You are cheerful this morning," Maedhros remarked, turning around. A still silence met him. Fingon's mouth had fallen open, a bit staringly "I..." Under touch, many and raised as they may be he knew they were part of him, alive. Scarce paces away, they seemed alien, sitting upon the healed familiar body. The last time he saw them, he remembered thinking that they would disappear when the blood stops flowing.  
  
Scars.  
  
White and purple parasites crawled upon pale skin leeched of color. Fingon remembered Maitimo unscarred flesh looked almost exactly like his own, a subtle rosiness tingeing the skin, different from the cool pallor of his father, his mother, and his brothers. There's small ancient strain of shared Vanyarin blood between Nerdanel's and Indis' families.  
  
There was a gleam of perspiration on Maedhros's forehead. The face was so pale. He had not expected that neither. The poisonous air, he thought, and almost cursed Manwe.  
  
Maedhros laughed, and the sound interrupted. The light is not kind, and he knew what Fingon saw and made him angry.  
  
"Scars, what of it?" He asked, "There's one on your chin when you fell headfirst from the tree in your tenth year."  
  
"What of it?" Fingon asked himself, but he held Maedhros' gaze in challenge.  
  
"He should have spent his time better building dwellings." Maedhros said.  
  
"He should have," Admitted Fingon bitterly. Against a wrist so white, it would not do...at all...  
  
Maedhros's expression softened. "I shall learn to wield a blade with my left, I shall write with my left, I shall dress with only my left. I have my arm to carry a shield still."  
  
At that, Fingon approached, the tip of his nose touched a stray strand of hair, more red than auburn now. Even this was scarred, bleached by the sun into a color oddly similar to dried blood.  
  
"It's well." He said, but could not prevent the formation of a tear. The reason for grief was suddenly clear: everything had changed. Desperate, he had expected Maitimo to stay the same because this was how it always had been, tall as he was, Maedhros's growth were slow in Fingon's eyes in Valinor though he grew to be tall. Every change had been imperceptible, until now. It was unfair.  
  
"As well as can be, for things we cannot change." Came the voice, half-a whisper. Maedhros understood then. Perhaps he thought Fingon would be the same when his eyes were cleared and the sun rises above the horizon. Yet Fingon knew even his voice had changed, hoarse and harsh after the oft calls of names in Helcaraxe.  
  
"No," Fingon looked up, unflinchingly into the strange gray eyes of his childhood friend, "All's well."  
  
"And why is that?"  
  
"Because, now, as before, we can only look to the future, and we will have one."  
  
"Such faith..", Maedhros murmurred, but in his heart saw that Fingon's words were true and wondered whether their hopes made them so.  
  
-=-=  
  
Maglor was sullen when they sat down together for the meal. Brothers' faces wearing hunger as they wont: smiling, scowling, nonchalant, licking lips, looking the other way, gorging themselves on wine first... Why must we be only familiar to each other, he wondered.  
  
He looked at the eldest.  
  
"You are king now, Nelyafinwe." Maglor said bitterly, and knived the meat in front of him.  
  
Maedhros started.  
  
"Cano.." he begin to say, laying a hand on Maglor's arm. "What is the..."  
  
But before he could finish, "Pity our uncle does not agree," Celegorm's voice spoke. Maedhros turned his head sharply.  
  
"Why would he not agree?" Maglor stared at the hand on his arm, and continued to eat with a certain savageness.  
  
"Did you know that he would not agree? He asked in between bites."  
  
"No." Maedhros said, and thought it ill that Maglor should broach the subject while they are at the table.  
  
"Nolofinwe consider you tainted by blood and torment," Amros said, "And thus, unfit to rule a people pure from the trials of the ice," continued Amrod. Cut, fork, eat. The motions're identical, repetitive, Maedhros thought he could become dizzy if he looked too long.  
  
"His people would not follow, and he would have us dispossessed of even the loyalties of our own house." Curufin said quietly. "He is moving them with words, and our father is not here..."  
  
"Findekano to ascertain it is true that you are alive, and only that." Caranthir looked at Maedhros, and Maedhros noticed that his face was worn and expression tired. The angry flush he expected instead was across his own cheeks.  
  
"No, he came because.." Maedhros trailed off. He cared? He dared not to voice a question, so instead, "Lord Nolofinwe is helping us, we must remain together."  
  
"Our cousin has poisoned your ear." Celegorm said simply, "He came to see you and you would not know the difference between a friend and a spy."  
  
"Enough!" Maedhros shouted.  
  
"What?" Six mouths with the same question, six mouths he fed in another lifetime.  
  
"Why must you do this to me? Here and now?" Maedhros's eyes flashed, He stood. The chair, pushed back, fell on the carpet with a soft thump.  
  
"We are gathered here for our subsistence, in all. ways."  
  
"Our cousin would have nothing to do with this..." Maedhros continued, weaker now.  
  
"We tended your wounds. You are our brother, we do not touch you less because of them."  
  
"Because you are my brothers.." Maedhros wished to say, but it made no sense.  
  
"He does not consider you, all of us, as those they knew of old." Maglor said gently, a grievous tale in his voice, "Everything, and everyone change. Our deeds...." he trailed off. Quiet was at the table, even the cutlery were silent as they moved.  
  
Maedhros sank down in his seat and grew troubled. Somewhere in his secret heart, he thought it might be true. After all, everything had changed.  
  
-=-=  
  
For all his stature, Maedhros never took up extra space like Celegorm or the twins who are used to open spaces and sprawled postures. Nelyafinwe sits proper and straight, like a child someone's showing off, which he is, and always has been: the example for all to follow. But Fingon know, seeing him sitting there, Nerdanel's hair, Feanor's face, Finwe's eyes, that though he is no longer "Maitimo", "Maedhros" has its own legacies.  
  
And of course, there is Nelyafinwe.  
  
"You do not wish me to be king." Nelyafinwe says to him without ceremony., the glitter of the circlet on his brow very bright. Fingon stood in front of him, finding his cousin oddly young and terrifyingly old at the same time.  
  
He is silent. Maedhros waits for a reply, his glance unwavering.  
  
They were different in the court of the Noldor. Different. Hah! It took the Ice and the Cliff and Morgoth for Maitimo hair to burnish from a subtle auburn to the uneven colors of a flame, for his skin to leech of color. Did Fingon knew him to be the same? Preternaturally white beneath the perpetual fever?  
  
"You do not wish me to be king." Maedhros repeats.  
  
Fingon's hands clench into fists. No time to play coy.  
  
"I do not."  
  
"Why?" The question comes in quick pursuit. Fingon makes one more step closer.  
  
"You were wounded." Says he. Maedhros makes an impervious gesture with his hand and smiles, almost smiles at his cousin. Brothers, you are wrong. He cares.  
  
"I am healed."  
  
"You will never be." Fingon hesitates, "The king must lead his people, his people must trust him. A king," He halts again, only to hear his own voice moving in the otherwise still air, "Will protect his people." A king, Fingolfin also says, will never be from Feanor's line for their oath is their master. A king must have no other oath to Eru than to his people. How else, he asks, can we have a king we call our own?  
  
"Very well." Maedhros answers. Fingon, who watches Maedhros carefully, cannot understand how the expression changes so quickly. He takes one step closer. Maedhros puts a hand in front of himself, the palm only slightly lined. Fingon stops and says: "But I would still follow you."  
  
So it is someone else's words that he speak, and that must be the purpose of his presence all along. Maedhros laughs, bitterly and without any trace of fey. For a moment, Fingon thinks himself martyred. His heart is rent to pieces.  
  
"Leave." Maedhros says, standing up, "I hurt from reason, I am sorry I cannot change."  
  
"I..." Fingon's fists clench tighter. There is a blur in front of him.  
  
"Leave." The blur is Maedhros and Maitimo looking down at a piece of paper on a desk.  
  
"Russ..."  
  
Maedhros looks up, and a sudden fury from the unsubtle face swept the pieces of Fingon's heart away.  
  
"Leave."  
  
Fingon left.  
  
He covers his face as he walks past his retainers, fearful that they'll see the anger in his face and think something's amiss. Yet nothing is amiss, the truth is told, is it not? That is his father's message, finally delivered, though late. His palms stung. When he looked, aching even as the rest of him is, there is blood on his hands.  
  
-=-=  
  
It is perverse perhaps, to cradle another's present. Fingon found the wooden box embossed with silver on his table when he returned. He looked at it, thought of opening it, then of throwing it into the fire. He did neither. It had lain there on the wooden surface until he could no longer look at it.  
  
It would be monstrosity to look within now, after all, it is not his, nor in fact, anyone's upon the Hither Shores except perhaps Morgoth's. Another trophy...Look at what you've done!  
  
There shouldn't be politics between friends, between two who only wish the best for each other.  
  
But there are.  
  
Fingon has no heart, so he did not care that it might be Morgoth's trophy rather than a gift between heartfelt once-friends. He pressed the box against his chest until the corners made dents in his skin. The nail marks in his palms are healing too rapidly.  
  
And of course, pain, the tents, the fire, dwindles into nothingness when he wanders the twilight paths. There is Fingon saying to Maedhros "Don't let go" and Maedhros saying to Fingon "Let it end"...  
  
And Maedhros is right, in that bitter Feanorian manner. Everything has ended.  
  
Over what? Led from what? What was a box and another work from a skilled pair of hands? Fingon's brother is Turgon, his uncle Feanor, his cousins Finrod and Curufin. He has seen enough art and art's work for any life time.  
  
But he is Fingon, and he said, "Don't let go."  
  
If he has to run, if he has to sneak past the guards of two camps in full martial array, he will. If he has to elude the shadows without Manwe, so be it. Dressed, placing the box deep within the belly of a chest, Fingon left, silent as his tears were silent.  
  
So Maedhros wakes from a heavy sleep with a warmth on his chest.  
  
"How do you wish me to prove my loyalty?" Fingon asks, his face very close to Maedhros's. He leans back slowly as the other sits, relinquishing his arm's place across Maedhros's chest.  
  
Maedhros looked hard at his cousin, who has his eyes downcast.  
  
"Findekano."  
  
"Yes?" Fingon looks up again, beside the soft ambers, pale face is shaded desperately fierce, eager, "I do not wish you to be unhappy."  
  
"I do not want your loyalty." Maedhros answers softly.  
  
Fingon blinks, and a bitterness welled inside of him, threatening to spill.  
  
"But only that is mine to offer." You can demand no more of me..  
  
"To have known you, that is happiness enough." Maedhros says. His hand ghosts down the side of Fingon's face, as if trying to memorize it for some rendering. Horrified, Fingon's turned his head slightly, and his lips met Maedhros's fingers with a terrible tenderness.  
  
"But we live." Fingon says, catching and pressing Maedhros's hand against his chest, "Here I am. Know me still."  
  
-=-=  
  
See the elf over there, with the two thick braids down his back and those bright clothes? He is Fingon, he is his father's son though right now if you ask, he would deny it.  
  
See the elf standing beside him, so close that their shoulders are touching almost? Yes, the one with the fiery hair and the lanky stature. (Just don't repeat it to either of them) He is Maitimo, Fingon's best friend.  
  
Child, don't mutter so. Say it out loud. Yes, he is our King, Feanor's son you know, one armed our not. Valinor loved his father enough to have come here. Imagine, yes, a people whose wives leave their husbands and vice versa. We did not leave Feanor or his sons to wander in the dark wild alone even afterwards. We love them so...  
  
What are they doing? Why, they are watching the stars. The sky has cleared so few times since we're here.  
  
Their heads lean together, I know. Are their hands clasped? I do not know.  
  
But don't let them see you, Finwian tempers are quite terrible, quite quite terrible.  
  
We're not supposed to see even this.  
  
"Why, Lord Fingolfin" (quick, child, bow), "I did not know you would come here so late."  
  
-=-= 


	2. Chapter 2

Beneath the starlight they stood together, side on side, steadying each other. The velvet sky was beautiful and traces of cloud made it seem like a winter blanket, fringed in snow fox fur. But Maedhros and Fingon questioned the pretty thing between them and knew the night to be cooler than those in Valinor.  
  
Neither realized it before. On all accounts, they should not be able to compare coldness and warmth of the wind so easily, nor, more importantly, remember old winds with a tingling on their skin.  
  
Many, many, many. Times beyond count of all the stars they had ran into the wilds of Valinor and watched- everything-together. The birds, the waves, the stars the waning and waxing light of the Trees. Finwe's house is never quiet, nor Fingolfin's, nor Feanor's. They had many sons and many competitions. Fingon and Maedhros found pleasure in the silences they felt together.  
  
They're remembering it all differently now. The memory pass over them like water upon the parched. It had been the balm upon their childish wounds, feather soft upon the flesh when the world was so young . They had never looked at it. Glimmering and shimmering, now it raised naked and beautiful against all the other thoughts in their minds.  
  
Ice or the high winds upon a cliff be damned. Experience could not leave its terrible mark when the warmth of the past sailed back in such floods.  
  
The winds of Middle-Earth were not as warm as Valinor. Maedhros did not turn his head. Fingon held Maedhros's hand, scarred and a little less shapely than in Valinor, just a little tighter.  
  
-=-=  
  
"A message for you, milord." Fingolfin turned, and raised his hand to shield his eye from the sun. The silver star of Feanor came into view, embroidered on the tunic of a young elf. He cradled a box under one arm. In his other hand was a letter. He handed the latter to Fingolfin, bowing slightly.  
  
Fingolfin smiled when he broke the seal. Fingon's curious closed hand with its letters going stiffly up and down brought him a certain reassurance. It begged forgiveness for abandoning camp in the middle of the night and mentioned that Maedhros and he had spoken together. "Peace," Fingon wrote, "Will prevail at the end, father. I have faith, and my cousin has promised his support. We shall cleave our people together as it were."  
  
He looked up, and noted that the Feanorian messenger was still there.  
  
"Does he require a reply?" He asked, an eyebrow arched. The messenger blushed, his pale face was suffused with a faint rush of pink.  
  
"No, milord, but I have another message. And I am to give this box to you." The elf said. Fingolfin reached out his hand for the letter. Instead, he felt the weight of the box balanced on his hand. Fingolfin glanced at the youth, who seemed to be looking at the grass. He thought of a reprimand, and decided that perhaps it was not his place after all. The elf bore a remarkable resemblance to one of the Feanorions. Dwelling upon the matter for only a little while, Nolofinwe opened the box and blanched.  
  
Finwe's crown sat resplendent with rubies set within silver and gold. Feanor had fashioned it when he was very young. Nolofinwe remembered his brother being displeased with it later on, but Finwe had been loath to change it. He had never imagined that he would see it again. They brought it here?  
  
The youth fumbled in his pockets and drew out another letter. Wordlessly, he hand it to Fingolfin, who, in his hastiness, broke the elaborate red seal into pieces.  
  
Greetings to Nolofinwe, son of Indis and Finwe,  
  
We are cousins, and pressed for time in this place, so allow me speak plain. Brother of Curufinwe my father, I, Nelyafinwe, am of the eldest House of the line of Finwe and the heir to the authority of that House. The kingship, let us not avoid that word, is my birthright. Should you wish to challenge my claim, then by whatever you hold dear, do so. Do not stir the trouble from the seething unease our circumstances have forced upon us. I have a name that I do not wish to sully by the weight of a hollow crown, nor do I desire a kingship without substance.  
  
Here is the crown our king wore when he walked upon the Valinor. I offer it to you freely now, and all that you think should come with it. I have never ruled the debates of the court nor sat in the hall of judgement in Tirion, but I have seen how eyes glitter when near their heart's desire. Though I may not know the duties of those who sit on thrones, nor the proper dignities of one, let me remind you, there had never been a Noldor king in Middle-earth.  
  
May Eru keep you, Nelyafinwe Maitimo  
  
He folded the paper again. Drawing a deep breath, Nolofinwe sighed. He regretted sending Fingon now. He should have known. Any matter between his son and Maedhros, always turn personal be they matter of court or family. They saw each other as principle characters when placed upon the same stage. Nolofinwe turned to the messenger. He thought he knew him, but he had been a babe in his mother's arms when Fingolfin last saw him in Formenos.  
  
"Did he say that aught about the box, Tyelperinquar?" The youth blushed a deeper red before meeting Fingolfin's even gaze.  
  
"He said, milord, that you may keep whatever's inside for as long as you wish." The grandson of Feanor hesitated, "Yet you may not keep the box."  
  
The man's perverse! Fingolfin nearly cried. He looked at the woman and the child who glanced curiously in their direction, then at this scion of Finwe, who seemed to be studying him. A little way off, members of his entourage approached from the side of the open sward. Fingolfin looked down at the crown again, gleaming in the sunlight. He turned to Celebrimbor.  
  
"Tell your lord, I cannot accept so dear a gift."  
  
-=-=

Fingon lay with his head upon Maedhros's breast and searched for a song, poem, or verse to sing. The thought was older than grieves and joys, more boundless than the heavens or the sea.  
  
Maedhros's hand smoothed through Fingon's hair. He unwound the golden threads and the thick plaits until Fingon's hair flowed over his skin like water. Down his bare shoulder ran a rivulet of a russet strand twined within a pale finger.  
  
Tabards or surcotes abandoned, endearments worn thin and vanishing, the stars looked down upon the entwined figures and thought it to be marble or ivory hewn  
  
The stars were high and faraway. They were wrong. (Here on the mortal earth)  
  
Thigh against thigh, arm on arm, chest upon chest, the small spaces between them were for living, fighting, kisses of skin pressed against skin. Maedhros's trembling hand smoothed down Fingon's quiet back. The flesh of their bodies quivered with each shaky touch, each uncertain caress. Fingon's warm lips brushed across Maedhros's scarred legs. Fingers tightened upon hips as body arched, and their elaborate graces threw a reflection upon the starlit waters: an image out of smitten recollection.  
  
They were not stone, and better than stones could form. No hammered form nor enameled finish could stand natural to peerless desire.  
  
The perfect unchaste kisses to burn perfect unchaste passions ...Fingon's gasps and Maedhros's sighs...  
  
O nameless pleasure...nameless love...  
  
The breaths of the world were Fingon's breaths.  
  
And the breaths followed the rhythm of Maedhros's heart.  
  
Here lay beauty, matchless and strange.  
  
Here lay sorrow in the sweet, crumpled grass. Fingon found no song for them to sing. Nor poem, to mark the moment.  
  
"But lay your hand upon my eyes...."  
  
"Bind my hands behind me..."  
  
"Beneath the dark stream, or in the darkest dream..."  
  
"My soul will find your soul."  
  
And in the echoes near the holy fire, there gathered eternity.  
  
-=-=  
  
He said many things of the fighting form, the dancing form, and the courtly form. He taught the little children and wrote the Book of Manners: Revised Edition.  
  
"Well, Maglor, tell me of the grieving form."  
  
"What for? You glow." Maedhros shrugged. But he did glow, luminous, bright, a magnificent beacon in the shadowy tent. Outside, the sun had begun its slumber.  
  
"Maglor, I only have one hand." Maglor looked askance at his brother and noted red highlights of his hair mingling with the red sun. The eyes no longer seemed feverish, and yet, nor do they seem to be fully at peace.  
  
"We have little used for grieving forms," Maglor finally said, glancing at the empty end of a sleeve before turning and dipping his pen into the inkwell, "Besides, I have nothing to teach you brother mine."  
  
"On the contrary, dear songbird, you who loved and married have everything to teach to one such as an I, bereft of grace and dignity." There was something in the voice, perhaps a slight hitch of breath that drew Maglor's attention. He sprinkled a dash of salt on the glistening manuscript before standing up and surveying his brother in detail. Maedhros seemed better in mood and body. The flesh Melkor froze had finally thawed and Maedhros walked only a mite unsteadily. Maedhros, who learned early to enjoy attention, preened a bit under Maglor's scrutiny.  
  
"You look as graceful and as dignified as I left you this morning." Said Maglor finally, though a bit facetiously and looked at the sundial on his desk. He made his usual graceful sign for Maedhros to excuse himself. Maedhros did not move.  
  
"I have given the kingship to Nolofinwe." Maglor froze in mid-gesture. His flourish crumpled; language was lost. He found his thoughts transcribed in music notes.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Worry not, brother mine, he did not accept." Maedhros waited with a bored expression as Maglor started humming.  
  
"No..." Maglor snatched back his thoughts and rendered it into speech, "Of course not." He paused, felt his face warm, and waited for a particularly intricate measure to arrange itself into words again, "He did not dare."  
  
"It is better, isn't it, that I remain king?" Maedhros seemed hesitant. Maglor still found difficulty speaking. "Isn't it?"  
  
"Of course it is." Maglor answered, attempting to deny an obvious undercurrent from asserting itself in Feanorian elocution. _You have tempted him. Else, you were tempted. _It's not something one says to one of his brother's temperament or experience.  
  
"Good, I just wanted to know." Maedhros said, the words oddly clipped. He walked over and placed his hand on Maglor's shoulder. Maglor almost jumped as it landed heavily. Maedhros looked at his brother sternly in the eye, "I trust you with this, you understand."  
  
"You trust Fidekano." Too late. The words were out. Maglor felt a violent jerk upwards and gasped as Maedhros grasped the collars of his shirt. Maglor had no doubt that if Maedhros was what he was, he would find himself bodily lifted off the ground. He stared at the tips of Maedhros' boots, grass stained and slightly muddied and, unrepentant, wondered whether Findekano tied Maedhros's boot laces that morning.  
  
"He's Nolofinwe's son. I am Curufinwe's." Maedhros said. Maglor did not look at him. After a moment, and a long sigh, he felt the fingers loosen. He could breath again, but he could not speak. When he finally looked up, notes pounding in his ears, Maedhros was gone and the sky had darkened with thick black clouds.  
  
-=-=  
  
The slim adolescence of his form has been stripped, a certain graceful severity of the flesh replaces it. Curufin thinks, with a little sadness in his heart, that his son is ready for war.  
  
"He's not." The voice belongs to Maedhros.  
  
"He needs to be." Curufin says bitterly. On the practice field, Celebrimbor's wooden practice sword meets his opponent's with a terrible ease. Curufin remember upsetting crucibles in Feanaro's forge when he was Celebrimbor's age. He does not need to turn around to know that Maedhros now carries his sword on his right.  
  
"He's not ready." Maedhros says again. His eyes misted over as Celebrimbor successfully bore the other to the ground, blunt, wooden sword point on another's throat, "We won't always have war."  
  
"He shall fight in the ranks before you learn to wield your sword with your left as easily as you do with your right." Curufin turns around and smiles at his brother, "Don't attempt to comfort me, Russandol, I am already resigned."  
  
"To what?"  
  
"All this, Russandol, all this." Curufin sweeps his hand across the field below them. Wrestling matches, sparring matches, archery matches, competitions of horsemanship were filled with the usual motley of excited voices. There's no wind today and the air hang thick with the smell of pine. Maedhros closes his eyes and allows the sounds of laughter and cheering to wash over him. "All this," Curufin whispers, eyes upon the occasional starlike gleam of metal on the tip of a lance or on the point of a helmet. He wishes to weep, to remember his own childhood, his brother standing beside him, saying: "Don't worry, all will be all right, all will be forgiven. Father can make another."  
  
Meanwhile, Celebrimbor pulls his friend up before they took their position again. Bow, arrows, sword and dagger, these are their playthings.  
  
-=-=  
  
There's was string between them now. No, a string is flimsy, too weak. Perhaps it's some sort of metal, but that seemed harsh, uncouth. Fingon searched for a word. One was never invented because it would be blasphemy, he decided, and cherished the secret joy the knowledge brought.  
  
The poison of Mithrim had lay ponderous and dense, coiling above its waters. They had prayed for the West Wind to no avail until Thorondor came among them, parting the thick black fog with each beat of its wings, bearing their princes in a swoon on its great back. Those that questioned Fingon's quest became silent, but when he woke, Maedhros was gone. His brothers had taken him, the healers told, and bade him to drink something bitter that made him sleep. Rest, they called it, and he had heard a sound like small feet dancing on the roofs before he fell to dreams.  
  
Fingon thought of this because it rained today, and the rain reminded him of Maedhros who loved the perfect gentle droplets in Valinor. He wondered if Maedhros loved the rain of Hither Shores equally. They were three days journey until Fingolfin's camp, and three days from Maedhros's in a forest path. The water fell from the sky unpitying. The wind aiding them, Fingon and his group soon felt what felt like ice shards hitting them from all directions.  
  
"We are going ahead." He told them, cursing under his breath, "It'll end soon."  
  
But it did not. Cold rain turned to ice, bouncing off their armor with heavy sounds. They were one day's journey from Mithrim before they reached the mountain path and found it blocked. Fingon astride his shivering horse suppressed a shudder going through him. Neither ice nor snow were in the way. Dead things littered and piled high. Small animals, larger animals, their carcasses showed cruel deaths and their frozen blood formed an impenetrable blockade. Seeing strips of cloth, Fingon did not wish to speculate whether there were elvish bodies as well.  
  
"We cannot pass." Someone said dully behind him. "It would wash away when the mountain lakes thaws fully in the summer." No one wished to say it. They must wait for another two months. Wordlessly, Fingon turned his horse and headed back to Hithlum.  
  
The Feanorians welcomed the weary travelers if not with warmth, then at least with hospitality. Fingon could only hope that his father, five days ahead of him, reached Mithrim in safety.  
  
"You are bruised!" Said Maedhros with some alarm, seeing the cuts and other wounds on their faces.  
  
"Not orcs," Fingon replied with a wane smile, still chilled despite warm soup and hot water, "Though the weather proved a potent, and unassailable enemy."  
  
Afterwards, alone in Fingon's tent, Maedhros noticed more bruises on Fingon's body in the shape of small rings, more on his shoulders and arms and less on his back and chest.  
  
"Horrible, isn't it?" Fingon said, slipping off his shirt, white chest marred by the occasional purple, "Wet clothes do not dampen the effect of the hauberk well." He winced as the collars of his shirt caught. Maedhros eased the shirt off of him, brushing past stiffening nipples, before he noticed all of Fingon's fingers, and the backs of his hands were gray.  
  
"Wonderful bruise," Maedhros remarked wryly, carefully balancing one of Fingon's hands on his own, "I'm sure this beats all your past records. How in Arda did you change from you wet things?"  
  
"It does." Fingon answered easily and sat down beside Maedhros, "I was half- frozen when we entered your camp, and quite insensible to the pain of unbuckling and whatnot. Other dressed me before dinner." Maedhros raised an eyebrow.  
  
"And now?"  
  
"It hurts." Fingon admitted, shrugged, and winced. Maedhros smiled, slipped down onto the ground, and kneeled before Fingon between his legs.  
  
"Say a word, and you can go to sleep in them." Fingon nodded, and Maedhros proceeded to take Fingon's light shoes off. When he was finished and looked up again, Fingon's eyes had gone dark. Smirking slightly, Maedhros placed his hand on Fingon's waist.  
  
"I've been thinking.." His hand slipped a bit lower.  
  
"Yes?" Fingers on the beginning of Fingon's breeches.  
  
"Of you," Now over the laces, "And maybe you should sleep."  
  
Fingon laughed, and bent down to kiss Maedhros's mouth.  
  
"Undress me first. It's too warm in here."  
  
"No other reason?" Maedhros asked, deft fingers unraveling the strings, "Maybe I can just extinguish the fire." He places his hand over the tumescence he uncovered, not moving. Fingon would've clenched his hands somewhere on the flesh of the other elf if they did not hurt so much. Instead, he gently patted Maedhros's copper head.  
  
"But you know I like to sleep with my skin touching the sheets, especially when you made such a fine bed for me." The last word trailed into a gasp as Maedhros begin to move his thumb slowly.  
  
"Always the finest bed for you," Maedhros said, hand moving away to strip Fingon of his breeches, "The finest sheets as well, the gentle pleasures. Did you know I kept the best room for you in Formenos even though you seldom visited? No one else slept in there." He looked up at Fingon with adoring eyes, palm against the inside of a thigh.  
  
"Touched," Fingon said, and groaned when Maedhros did just that: with his mouth.  
  
-=-=


	3. Chapter 3

With their foes multiplying in the mountains instead of marauding on their borders, spring was coming to a close. Summer and its dry heat irritated nevertheless. Aredhel, like the others, had sewn her dress without the sleeves, and reduced the length until it barely brushed her knees. The ladder shook as the girl upon it leapt down onto the ground, sky blue dress aflutter.

"They're here!" She cried out. And soon enough, the heavy, rough-hewn gates opened with far more noise than the marching steps. Dusty, travel-worn figures were embraced by a flurry of arms and silver voices.

Looking at her companions greeting the newly returned soldiers, whiles she smiled on, Aredhel wished she was waiting for one. One to say farewell to near the end of autumn, and one to welcome home to in the beginning of the summer. Everything in Middle-earth worked in cycles. It was slightly confusing at first: to see, to hear, to taste, and to touch, every one of those changes without knowing why, and without anyone to ask. But who was Aredhel going to complain to? And she found that the cycles could also become almost hypnotic, as much as the eternal spring in Valinor. Broken off from it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

Struck with a sudden bout of despondency, she felt hot tears in her eyes. Someone touched her elbow, but she smiled and gently pushed him toward a blushing face.

They were going to the lake now that the poison had dissipated with the coming of the balmy weather. Aredhel followed, but she went further than the grove of trees where blankets and food were taken out and spread out under the cool shadows of the leaves. While they sat down amiably and amorously, she kicked her shoes off and ran to the bank.

The mud's delightfully squishy between her toes, and welcomingly cool. She considered diving into the waters, dress and all before a voice called: "Halt!"

She turned. There was Ecthelion, all bright innocence and fair face, the golden Glorfindel, as ever, by his side. They were both stripped to the waist and barefoot. The smooth skin on their shoulder and sides showed new scars, some still slightly red.

"Touched by the heat, Irisse?" Ecthelion asked, the corners of his lips curving into a smile, "You can't dive from this end. You'll crack your head, and we would all be grieved." He added, not quite mustering the proper gravity for such a pronouncement.

Aredhel shrugged, and said: "I wasn't planning to."

Glorfindel and Ecthelion looked at each other knowingly but did not comment. Aredhel liked to think she saves her own grace. Aredhel narrowed her eyes. She knew and she knew, but it was a harmless habit.

She drew herself taller and fully, her eyes directly ahead and intended march away every inch dignified. She walked past them, upward a small bluff and became rather suspicious. Justifiably so, for Glorfindel sneaked up on her, caught her waist, swung her round, and laid a kiss on her cheek.

"You did not miss me?" He whispered by her ear. Belatedly, Aredhel found herself airborne and fought to get away only to be more fully embraced. Dimly, amidst of the roar of embarrassment and delight in her ears, she heard Ecthelion's ringing laughter.

"Let me go," She hissed.

"Tell me you missed me." Glorfindel answered her.

"I missed Ecthelion."

"The lady has declared her favor." Ecthelion announced, and launched himself at Glorfindel. Aredhel felt a rush of air and found herself very close to the ground, separated from it by a layer of Glorfindel.

"I daresay Turukano will have my head now." Glorfindel said beneath her, a study of the mixture of grimace and smile. Aredhel removed her elbow from his side and kissed him very gently on the lips.

"He shall give it to me, and I will keep it beside my bed because it is so nice to look at." Replied she, before moving off and sitting beside him.

"Really," said Ecthelion, aghast, as he pulled Glorfindel up, "You could just tell Turukano not to have his head at all."

"But we are presuming that he will."

"Bah! syntax." Glorfindel interjected, "But I'm honored, Irisse, that you would have my head as the first thing you see in the morning." He bowed from his position on the ground, wincing slightly. Aredhel nodded and carefully leaned her head on his shoulder. His arm wrapped around hers. Ecthelion sat beside them, an arm propped on an elbow, the other hand tapping his knee, a thoughtful look on his face.

For a while they sat there, watching a group of children in an elaborate setup with a piece of seashell, alternatively throwing it up then diving after it when it entered the water. The motions are rhythmical, almost hypnotizing. Glorfindel found himself almost asleep on the grass that was tickling the skin his neck. Aredhel and Ecthelion were in the same state, their steady breaths calming.

"Have you ever considered how strange it is that our games turned out to be more than games."

Ecthelion threw a worrying look at her. "What do you mean?"

"Our games of teams, of strategy, waterfights, snowfights ontop of mountains were instincts to us. It is as if we are meant to return, meant to fight," Aredhel drew a finger down a long scar down Ecthelion's chest, the puckered skin smooth and trembling. "It is as if the youth of our people passed, we are coming into adulthood."

"That's what those who knew the Dark said."

"What if it all happened before?" Aredhel asked.

"If it had all happened before, we would not have a Valinor to miss and love." Glorfindel said.

"I have fallen only faintly in love." Aredhel whispered, half to herself.

"Faintly?" Ecthelion asked, piqued by curiosity and a small wariness. He wanted an answer, but Aredhel could not answer it. She had not yet wed and did not truly know love.

"I think I would like to see Tyelkormo." She announced. Baited his breath for nothing after all. Ecthelion flopped back onto the grass, disappointed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a faint trace of gold.

"Why," Ecthelion asked, playfully picking up one of Glorfindel's partially undone braids and batting it on Aredhel's face, "does this not satisfy your penchant for fair hair?"

Aredhel yanked, Glorfindel yelped, and snatched his hair back, stabbing the soft ends on Ecthelion's neck first. Prickled and tickled, the elf started rolling around in laughter. As it did not look to stop, Aredhel sat up and looked at Ecthelion, astonished.

"Pity there's no one to see this," Glorfindel murmured, "It would be such a scandal. Everyone's coming home escape those would take care of these things."

Aredhel raised an eyebrow at this. "Scandals you mean. Well, Findekano's coming home as well."

"He's hardly scandalous."

"I envy him sometimes." Glorfindel heard, and turned to face her, the tell-tale colors of rage already coloring her pale cheeks.

"For being at Hithlum with the Feanorioni? Only a small scandal." He teased, reaching out to brush a tendril of hair drifting pass her eyes.

Aredhel rolled onto her back and sat up.

"For bearing things so well. How can he _bear_ it? As if this is all we've ever known. Today we are going to do this, tomorrow we are going to do that. We must prepare for winter in the summer. Maitimo would offer us this, we must return him that. Let's invite Ambarussa to a hunt and sit them at the end of the table with us. I hate this."

Getting increasingly heated with each word, finally she stood up and with a barely mumbled excuse rushed out to the lake, the deeper end, Ecthelion noted.

"For all her wildness, she wants to go home." Glorfindel commented, chewing on the grass stem. He made no move to follow her.

"We do, too." Ecthelion said softly.

"But there is no home." Glorfindel said, and spat the green stuff out, an appalled look on his face. He remembered it being sweeter.

"Glory and adventure indeed, yet there are times when I just miss ..." The images and scents and tastes rose sharply into Ecthelion's mind and still more sharply the emotion that pierced his heart. "Confound that Irisse! You know I don't want to forget." Ecthelion shouted, leapt up, ran down the hills and dived into the waters in one familiar motion: a perfect arc above the surface, and nary a splash when he broke it. Glorfindel followed his friend, and as the water touched his heated skin, forgot for a moment-


	4. Chapter 4

He arrived in the middle of something. Fingolfin spared a brief envious thought for the horses in the Feanorian camp before seeing a glimpse of something familiar in the play of shadows upon Maedhros's tent. But the light within flickered out, and the shadows melted into the dusky night.

It was too late, and those who were not asleep were needed at their posts. Nevertheless, Ambarussa greeted him cordially, and granted him and his followers food and beds into a proper house made of wood before setting off on their horses into the forests.

Warm, fed, and washed for the first time in a fortnight, Fingolfin found himself unable to sleep. Fingon should not know he was here. While the kingship of Middle Earth, should it really came to that, was an effect of the Noldor people, any negotiations of this supposedly non-negotiable thing must be kept strictly private, even if he would have to weather the scrutinizes of too many pairs of bright eyes- including his son's. Nevertheless, circumstances, the world in particular perhaps, had made it he would have to confront both Maedhros's distrust and Fingon injured pride and suspicions in the morning. The prospect tired.

A thought struck while an owl hooted outside. Though the thought was unworthy, Fingolfin thought, his sleep uneasy.

--

Alone, and looking quite harmless, the younger sons of Feanor greeted him cautiously as he walked past them. Fingolfin, for his part, returned the greetings in the reassuring manner they remembered from childhood. The Ambarussa looked a bit worn, but they cheered up at this.

But when he neared in front of Maedhros's counsel yurt, an abrupt brown mushroom in the middle of a green field, Fingolfin felt a fleeting anger so swift that he tasted only the aftermath of it. He frowned, feeling the annoying childish ache of wanting to chew the inside of his mouth.

He slowed his step because he could not hesitate: there were so many eyes watching. And here came Caranthir boldly striding. Fingolfin turned- anything for a distraction- and was surprised by the almost horrified look on the man's face. And before he spoke, Caranthir mumbled a vague greeting before hurrying, Fingolfin supposed that a brother did not need to make himself known, into Maedhros's yurt.

Now he did stop, and soon felt a tap on his shoulder. Ambarussa, freshly washed and changed, hair still wet, beamed at him.

"Would it be terribly improper for you to wait a moment here" Ambarussa asked with their eyes wide. "It would not take long, but our brother," Fingolfin ignored the vagueness and waved a hand at them. His head started to hurt. Ambarussa looked at each other and dashed off. He looked around, tried to smile politely and ignore the fact that he was possibly here waiting for an argument.

He had stopped thinking when the Ambarussa rushed past him joyfully, and Caranthir with a disconcerting vehemence behind them. He almost halted but as it was, merely pointed at the flapping cloth that served as a door before renewing his chase.

Fingolfin entered the site of kerfuffle and found Maedhros standing at his desk in the midst of a rude gesture. At least, thought Fingolfin ruefully, he's at ease here.

"Well, greetings." Said Fingolfin, and sat himself down on hard-backed chair. His hand drifted to the armrest and found it polished and slightly decorated. _Well, I see Feanorian vanity intact at the least...._

Maedhros gave him a look that would've been apologetic if not for the nonchalance, as if it was not him but someone else who offended their guest. But as Fingolfin felt himself offended far too much already, he did not mind the small addendum. Then Maedhros began to speak, and Fingolfin found himself replying as if everything was nothing.

No word left either's lips concerning his complicated presence here, nor of Maedhros's generosity, for a lack of better word. Notwithstanding, Fingolfin did not believe that the kingship was the issue. Finwe relinquished it with grace, and Feanor wanted it only because he considered it a sign of his father's affection. Only the Valar...here he paused, and heretically wondered whether the Valar damned them on purpose.

"I have weapons enough for any who would wield them to serve their lord." Maedhros said finally, and Fingolfin knew he was wrong. To wield a weapon of a certain make had taken a symbolic meaning in these times. Fingolfin was not blind to all the sudden flurry of honors and dishonors that came with a sword or a bow that could be named as if it was a child. Kingship, apparently, was no longer a ceremonial post in Maedhros's mind. He would have people under his banner.

"There are those of my house who desires less of war and more of anything else, it appears."

"The land is dangerous." Maedhros said.

"That is unfortunate." Fingolfin relented, just a little.

"People deserve to protect themselves, and the proper tutelage to do so until time sees that we're at peace again." Maedhros had a certain way of looking at things as if they're everything in the world. While others may find it endearing, Fingolfin found it annoying but he'll acknowledge it was very flattering.

"You find me in agreement," He replied with some difficulty, "However, we have lived quite well on our own. Not to mention, you'll find that your absence has done little to mitigate the people's feelings toward..."

"They'll find that man is dead," Maedhros said, a little softer, "You pounded at the Gates without gaining entry. It was a waste of time and resources and an excess in humiliation. And living well doesn't mean we can't all live better, even a little. Surely sundered kin wish to be reunited instead of having to cross mountains to see each other because of our foolish mistake. But that can be corrected easily with joint force and enough incenstive. We both know that the Noldor are ruled by nolstalgia now, and we're all a little proud of our travails as a people." He paused. "You have seen the crown."

"And neither of us is worthy of it. You would have me crown myself knowing I could not on my own or you would have me in support of you doing the same. It's foolish while your 'foolish mistake' was a deliberate evil." Maedhros flinched, just barely. Pleased, Fingolfin took a breath. "No one can be High King in Middle-earth proper with either of us crowned. People are not stupid, Maedhros. For this reason you're only High King in your own court here."

Maedhros's lips drew back from his teeth. Fingolfin winced, and suppressed a shudder. It was not a handsome smile.

"But you do want it."

"Of course."

Later, Fingolfin thought perhaps he shouldn't have been so honest.

--

"Good afternoon," Fingon said to Maedhros.

Maedhros threw him a peevish look and a piece of paper that fluttered uselessly to the ground. Fingon arched his brow.

"Go away." Maedhros muttered without looking at him.

"Very well."

He turned around and stepped out of the room when Maglor saw him and hastily shoved him in again. Fingon was going to protest but the hand on his chest was surprisingly insistent.

"Back already?" Maedhros voice again when he had one foot across the threshold. Fingon pointedly pushed Maglor down the steps before heading back in.

"If you don't mind." He said, and sauntered to Maedhros's desk until he was standing right in front of it, staring at Maedhros's copper head.

"You know, Findekano, sometimes I wonder whether I'm a fool, but I do mind. I mind very much."

"Then I'm back to be entertained." Maedhros snorted as Fingon crossed his arms over his chest and took note of what Maedhros was reading. On the desk was a large piece of paper filled with tiny writing. Findekano gestured. Maedhros shrugged, and sank further into his chair. Fingon picked up the paper and started reading.

Expressions changed from light amusement to disgust and then, interestingly, to guilt.

"Maglor's work, of course," Maedhros said, seeing the look on Fingon's face, "His treatise on irrigation given the unstable soil conditions. Don't feel guilty because you think it boring." He reached forward and snatched it away. Blinking somewhat owlishly, Fingon allowed his hand to hover in the air. "Never mind that, Findekano, I just wondered how we managed to build civilization from scratch without going mad."

"By being fools of course. And not exactly scratch. Your are sitting in front of a desk. We have concept about such things." Fingon said. Sunlight spilled from the windows behind him, reaching forward and barely touching the shadows on Maedhros's face when he looked up.

"Near enough to nothing. How long was I up there? Five, ten, fifty years? From the thicket of a battle to the fiddling of accounts and grain." Maedhros sighed. "Cano's an entfire civilization onto himself nowdays, he's actually teaching calligraphy now, luxuries of learning. Before he came into prominence, I hear, Tyelkormo and Ambarussa were in charge of food. And Curufinwe was in charge of the tools. Caranthir apparently took care of counting things, and he said that to me with a serious face while Cano kept everyone's spirits up. Before that, of course, father was a man full of useful ideas. I was helping I thought. Now, everything's hopelessly..domestic." Maedhros closed his eyes only to hear Fingon's laughter.

"You are rambling. Empire building as domestic. Both tedious and necessary and desired. Why not?"

"Perhaps because I lost time and have failed to see the tedium. Yet I am still faced with all the consequencs. The necessity, as you so aptly put it." Fingon sobered.

"You did." He tried to say it softly, gently, like it would still wound. It couldn't, of course, Maedhros was resilient to mere words, and perhaps other more subtle things, too. But their gazes caught and Fingon always answered to Maedhros. And Maedhros always asked of Fingon.

"Am I to have it back?"

"No."

"Nothing to do about it then, except to look to the future." Maedhros said lightly, something flashed in his eyes, "Plan and realize and be happy we're here to see it. Perhaps that should be the policy above all else. "

"That would be ingnoring diplomatic manners. Undermining the past..." Fingon trailed off as Maedhros got up behind the desk and placed his hand over his mouth. Lips still tingling from somewhat acidic taste of the writing salt, he turned a bit confusedly when Maedhros walked past him.

Maedhros pushed open the door and caught a glimpse of Fingolfin hovering direstly in the line of sight speaking to someone with that tight expression of his. Not so lacking in diplomatic niceties after all, Maedhros turned and smiled at Fingon. If the other thought it sad, he was polite and happy enough not to comment.

"You are leaving tomorrow," Maedhros reached into a cupboard, and took out a cordial specially made to ease his headaches, though he found it eased most of everything else as well. Turning around to face Fingon again, he waved the bottle and gestured at the cups on the table. "Stay here a bit now, let me ply you with wine and tales, and honor that past you're so concerned about."

--

Fingolfin did not see himself as a man neither kind nor cruel, cowardly nor courageous. But confound this, he knew his rights as a man. The quiescent morning and the not so quiesent conversation only made him consider that perhaps it would be wise, as Nerdanel once told him, to back off from a burning thought before it leads to anything worse. Snapping, Fingon had said, displaying the knowledge: "Our cousins does it all the time". Fingolfin snapped twice in his life. Once, it led to a certain bliss...the second time...well, he was here wasn't he?

He wondered whether there was a collusion between Fingon and his cousin aimed at him. A father should not distrust his son, especially when the son is Fingon the Valiant, tried and true. But Fingolfin suspected that Fingon, if he is would know it himself, he would deny it because he was tried and true. A true friend.

It frustrates and confounds. Fingolfin was never close to his brothers. They're scattered in three places now. And even his wife, she's not here. But he's an understanding person: it's one thing to have a friend, another to hold him so dear to the obliviousness of everything else. He thought about Finwe and Feanor, and quietly despaired.

The curtains were open. This troubled him, because Maedhros did it on purpose. Out of the corner of his eye, he knew Maedhros saw him, and Fingon did not, thankfully.

Excusing himself from the master of horses, he would've walked away had not he spared another glance into the window, and found Maedhros apparently asking Fingon to stay. The kiss then, was an affectionate one.

He stood outside, playing a still audience. He did not cut an imposing figure like the bright Feanor or the golden Finarfin, and it's not his place. No one would flock to him. Maedhros knew this and now made use of it. So Fingolfin was the lone spectator of the unfolding scene. Maedhros wanted this, wanted to see him and Fingon devoid of the appropriate borders that he trusted in. Unguarded expressions and touches of close confidence playing without inhibitions. Far, far more comfortable than Fingon was anywhere else.

Your stage, Fingolfin thought to himself, two principle players; therefore, blind. Folly in other court but this one. Lingering by the shadows, he saw Fingon leaving while he looked on at their farewell and felt a curious ache seeing the look on Maedhros's face.

He stared, embarrassingly entranced. Maedhros turned and looked at him with an amused smile.

"Cousin," He said in the doorway. The raise of the steps made his figures taller, but Fingolfin stood paces away.

"You would make a fool of me." Fingolfin said, looking at the other with a level gaze. Steady, he told himself. What is a man without dignity? But what is a man with too much of it?

Maedhros looked at him. He walked close and said: "I would you no less and no more than me." There was the urge to raise his fists and batter that infuriating face, Fingolfin suppressed it. It was not a thing he does. Maedhros walked away from him.

"Nelya!" He called, but Maedhros did not wait, so Fingolfin followed.

--

"We thought you're healed."  
  
Maedhros laughed drily and closed his eyes against the bright glare of the afternoon. There was grass beneath his feet and it was a windless day. It could be very easy to ignore the quietly angry presence. He's had practice."Am I giving you evidence to the contrary," He opened his eyes and paused as his glance fell to the baldric slung across Fingolfin's shoulders, the brilliant sun and the blue background, "Cousin?"  
  
Fingolfin walked deliberately away. There was an old tree at the end of the sward, leafless and charred black by lightening. Fingolfin remembered his first storm, and how he had stood under it until Finwe found him and led him inside, understanding and smiling, because "No, stars are not so violently made, nor do the hurtle." His heart must have turned to stone, the recollection brought him nothing no more than anger.  
  
"I wish you would leave Findekano." The words were wrong. Fingolfin regretted them. It's too petty. It's about more than Findekano.   
  
"It's unfortunate my father's not here to defend me." Maedhros said. Fingolfin swirled around.

"My brother knew of this?"  
  
"He did not, but he would say the same to you, for me. Then you would fight, and Fingon and I would be on a hill somewhere, wondering whether we should fight as well." A wistful expression overcame Maedhros's face and Fingolfin felt guilty despite himself. And with guilt, came a hysterical sort of desperation, unreasonable. But he was an understanding man to the end.

"He has eyes only for you." He said, paused, considered, and grew tired of the wary silence between them. "His words are only for you. Must you share his every grief and every joy?"

Yes. Maedhros wanted to answer, but hardly thought Fingolfin could stand for it.

"He is old, and wise enough to choose his companion."

"But you are not."

"Ah." Maedhros closed his eyes, willing the bitterness to recede. The chief of these grievances was his wisdom in these matters, still. It pained him. After all, for all his copper hair, Maedhros was Feanor's son, first and favorite and only for the longest time. But he was not his father. "I love him." Maedhros said. Who was wise in love? Certainly not Nerdanel, called the Wise. Nor Nolofinwe, also wise, whose wife was across the sea. Nor the powerful Valar, who loved Morgoth enough to set him free among them.

Fingolfin mustered himself, never so cruel as to turn away an assurance, "Love him then, as well you can, but do not cleave him to you entirely. He is my son." And then he looked far away, casting his gaze away from Maedhros.

"You have another," said Maedhros coldly.

"But he cannot have a son."

Maedhros laughed then, loud and raucous, startling a flock of birds from their perch. Fingolfin looked at him in surprise. The presence of Maedhros was never an easy thing to contend with. He towered a full head above Fingolfin, himself of considerable height. So he took a step back when Maedhros touched his shoulder and could look at him evenly.

"Look at us, so preoccupied with our mortality." Maedhros smiled in his terrible way. He brought up his left hand, the palm was smooth and shiny and almost translucent with new skin.

Fingolfin quelled his flinch and burned with a strange shame. Everyday and everywhere, there was that mortality that every child knew to forgive. Even in Valinor, things died. And yet, Fingolfin could not forgive himself for thinking he would be the same, no different than a bird or a beast, taken with the same ephemeral existence. It's not natural, not supposed to happen. He should not be here. But he was, and he's i dealing /i with it.

"You have an evil confidence." He said to his dead brother's son, watching carefully. A shadow flitted past Maedhros face and was gone as soon as he saw it.

Maedhros thought of Fingon and for some reason, Celebrimbor. A flash of that young graceful body bloodied and raised tall as a terrible banner rose unbidding to his mind. He bit his lip and worried the flesh between his teeth. Inhaling deeply of the afternoon scent of gentle flowers, he was glad there was no wind. He had enough of those.

"No, cousin, rather that I have no confidence at all."

--

There was no truce between them, but nor was there new enmity. What was there before, remained, and simmered. Then a vision of a fish wriggling on the end of a line shot through his head.

Fingolfin turned stared at him, and said: "And yet he would have me as a baited fish."

His advisor shrugged, and smiled. He had more important matters to attend to, like how to conseal the tracks and trails. But Fingolfin must know. He laid his hand on the other's arm, only to have a disbelieving face looking at him in irritation.

"What else would you have him do?"

For every civilized interaction, there was bound to be a violent reaction afterwards. Nothing was exactly civil these days, after all. Somehow, he doubted that civility even existed, even once upon a time. Ever since he could remember, there was Feanor, and where Feanor was there was no peace.

"I'm being baited!" Fingolfin repeated the words and smacked his forehead with his hand, letting the arm go.

"It's hardly a crime."

"Everyone knows!"

"You are his father."

"He's a grown man for Eru's sake!"

"Who still lives in your house."

"Only symbolically. As if I can order him around. Do you consider the remotest possibility for me to offer the merest suggestion that perhaps it's a tad unseemly for him to fraternize with..."

"What? The enemy?"

Fingolfin snorted.

Fingon held his trust. Maedhros held Fingon's trust. And the folk of Feanor, they follow the Feanorion. Fingolfin shook his head, this is a mess. Short of disowning his son, problematic and unwanted, the folks of Feanor consider themselves on tolerable, if not amiable, terms with those who crossed the ice, which's far from the truth. But being that it was the perceived truth, anything other than expected would be betrayal mounting to civil war.

And then, leaders of the same side must appear united because certainly they're not enemies. Rivals, perhaps, but all the violence on the Hither shores are against them. The world, then, Fingolfin snickered mentally. The world is against us and so we cannot afford to be divided. It's a standstill that must end quickly. This was after all, hostile territory. His horse slowing to a canter, he drew his sword and nodded to his companions.

Two miles upwind: orcish raiders riding from the direction of the no man's land between Maedhros and Fingolfin's gates.

--


	5. Chapter 5

They had pinched his wounds closed with a fever that burned deep and harsh, yet it knitted his flesh.

This was healing, they said, looking unwaveringly at his battered form.

It was Maedhros who turned away, closing his eyes, drunk of the sight of their faces.

I knew your names once, recited them so many times…

"Our brother burns."

"That is not unusual."

"Findekano left." The Ambarussa said. "And he's falling apart. Everyone's noting it, it's worse than when it happened with father."

That was a mild way of putting it, thought Celegorm, though he did not say it. Of Feanor, after all, people who saw him were already prepared for splendid and strange things. Unfortunately, Maedhros inspired no such expectations at the moment. That, a wiser voice added in his head, must be corrected. As if hearing his thoughts, Huan made the canine equivalent of a snort.

"Fingon's the only one that holds his sanity together?" Celegorm asked instead. He was crouched low on the ground, staring intently at the trail, what's left of it anyways. Really, people had been stamping about too much. Celegorm planned to talk about it, later. "What about us?"

"We are the familiar things for his comfort, Findekano's the balm which heals." Amrod replied smoothly, and looked at Amras who was staring at something in the distance.

"You're all suddenly very wise lately, speaking in the abstract and the weirdly metaphorical. Curufin told me the other day that Maitimo's too much in love with the idea of eternity and is languishing for the lack of it. But we can do nothing about that." Celegorm paused and said, aiming for distraction: "What do you think of the trail?"

"Perhaps it'll be better if Nelya go with Findekano for a while?"

"Go with?"

"Stay with," Amras said, frowning a little. Amrod looked at him, startled.

"And pray you, from whence came that outlandish idea?" Celegorm asked, torn between amusement and irritation. Children and their incoherencies. What would Feanor think?

"Nolofinwe's not going to let his son stay for longer." Amras pointed out, "It's only fair since he stayed with us for almost half a season. Who knows, Nelya would be fully healed. Findekano cheers him up. Strange, you might think, him being a reminder of his time up that cliff. But while he was here, Nelya was so," He searched for a word amidst that confusion of sentences, "Nice."

"It's not and it won't." Celegorm said patiently, though he suspected secretly, without the politics, that won't be true. Artlessness or not, at least the Ambarussa knew the crux of a solution- Feanorians are not meant to be alone, least of all a suffering one. Everyone suffers in the aftermath. Maedhros had been nice while Findekano was here, nicer than any self-respecting man would act while receiving a guest. Furthermore, he was even nice to Curufin. This, and other things, leads to a trail of reasoning he's unwilling to follow. Ambarussa was looking at him intently, with a hurt look in their eyes. Celegorm sighed and looked away. He wished his own friend was here. Above his own selfish desire for familiar companionship and conversations loosed by friendship, at least he would have something to measure that between Fingon and Maedhros against.

"It cannot be far from here." He heard himself say, and the self-answering Ambarussa debated the merits of his comment.

If he was here, Celegorm thought, I would not mind so much that Findekano comforted Nelya or questioned their friendship so much, Fingon being the amiable enemy in our Noldorin dispute. But my great friend stayed Valinor, and Findekano came, and would with or without Nolofinwe's leave. And Anaire didn't come, when she above anyone craved new things and was Nolofinwe's wife who shared his home for longer than I've been alive. Celegorm looked down at the scuffed toes of his shoes and was forced to consider again if it was madness that seized them all that day, why some and not others? And what manner of madness had seized him? He was sure by now that no one had escaped it. There had been so many odd behavior lately…

Huan gave a low whine and prodded him with his nose. The Ambarussa was speaking. Celegorm felt slightly ashamed of himself for being so distracted. Perhaps it's the madness, he thought, but I am neither Cano nor Nelya.

"We'll lose it over the stream even with Huan," Amras said. The hound glared darkly at the twins. "Whatever it was, it was scouting our territory for the last week without anyone ever setting eyes on it."

"Obvious intelligence," Celegorm said and felt quagmire thoughts washed away. "But now we're hunting." He smiled tightly. There! There no madness can touch me.

"What do you think?" Curufin asked. Maglor was scratching something on a piece of paper. At Curufin's voice, he glanced up. "Think of what?"

Curufin felt patronized, but it was Maglor's way.

"How will we get through…" He asked.

"Winter?" Maglor interrupted, "We just got through one. Aren't you a bit hasty to.."

"He's more trouble…" Curufin started, than stopped, thinking better of it. He stared at Maglor warily. His brother seemed meticulously unwashed. His cuffs were frayed and inkstained, spots of ash and mud dotted his cheeks and neck, yet his hands were clean.

"What? Than his worth?" Curufin bristled at Maglor's voice. It's his wandering voice, one that he used when dealing with the disturbances when he was composing.

"At the present, yes." Curufin answered shortly. The flow of words was too discontinous, it grated on his ears.

Maglor did not answer. He glanced down at the paper on his desk again. Curufin waited, hearing agreement in the silence. You thought so too, otherwise you would not have said it. But then Maglor looked up, and this time there were two high spots of color on his cheeks beneath the mud.

"And where did you get that? Carnistir's accounting books?" His voice was sharp. Curufin wondered if it was for shame or anger.

"He also conducts polls." He said evenly.

Maglor smiled unpleasantly and Curufin wished he did not call this man brother. As reading his thoughts, Maglor continued: "Isn't he the model of good government? Our officious brother." The quality of which was unmistakably a vicious one. Maglor had a voice that inflected precisely, even if that polite, almost scuffed looking face showed nothing. Curufin felt a muscle jerk in his arm. He made himself speak instead. The words quivered in his throat, and his muscles were still tense.

"That's cruel and unfair. Macalaure. He wanted to know what people think of their own lives."

"Yes, he has a feel for people's opinions. People's opinions," Maglor laid his hands flat on the desk, covering whatever he was writing and stared at them, "Curufin, those are ridiculous things to consider now. We will not survive if we listen to them. It'll be anarchy." Curufin clamped his mouth shut and spoke through his teeth.

"Grandfather would not agree."

"Grandfather's dead. And he ruled in peace, not in shadow." Maglor answered, words so clipped that the end of one treaded on the beginning of another. The effect was disconcerting, not to mention irritating.

"For one so well versed with words, you can be amazingly stupid at times." Curufin said, tried and still trying for that inner calm Celegorm told him about: he had been teaching him patience, "This assumed authority is ridiculous and you know it. He's playing an ugly game with Nolofinwe." He drew a breath, and winced at the sight of Maglor's face. He did not expect Maglor to have worked himself to a state when he planned them. "You know it. You saw his expressions as he left, and we've known him for so long as well. He's not a man that showed irritation lightly. What did Maitimo tell him, alone and being Nelyafinwe? Don't protest. We don't know our brother, not anymore. We hardly know ourselves. This goes beyond Fingon and all he might represent, his past goodwill and his friendship are valued, but he is of Nolofinwe's house, a house with folks full of resentment. What Nelya does with Findekano is at the best-subversion, and at the worst, treason, on either party's part. People are confused, displeased. The muddle of who's paying allegiance to who undermines…."

That's not true, Maglor wanted to say. Fingon's neither threat nor distraction; he's compensation and appeasement. Would you deal with Maitimo in his melodramatic moods Curufin? Maedhros deserved respite, away from all this mangling of the things he knew to be true, and which are true, if people do not so often think of how lying might benefit one another. Why should we ply our dark thoughts on him who had suffered for being everything we're slowly betraying? How about we put you up on a cliff for ten years, Curufin, take away your hand and see how you deal with that? And as soon as he thought of it, Maglor was ashamed. Curufin continued, centering on the thought that this was a problem, and he a means to solve it.

"Turukano, in all his cool grace and restraint," Maglor suddenly remembering an incident from very long ago and suppressed a smile; the occasion's inappropriate. "Wrote to me and asked: 'What does Maitimo want, we can ill afford time and resources for troubling words that would only serve to fuel conspiracies and disquiet'; I agree with him, Cano. Find out."

"Find out?"

Curufin found Maglor's bewilderment calming. As much as he's aware of Turukano's sentiments against him, he was not so petty as not to recognize a pragmatist when he sees one. Maitimo the mystery had disconcerted the wise Finwion. Even if Turukano never wrote of it, one can scarcely believe that Nolofinwe visited and left with a dark face and would do nothing about whatever caused it. Their uncle's one of those who's slow to anger, and he shared the Finwean trait of a long memory.

"Find out what Nelya's planning. He thinks me a revolting reminder of what's happening here. Your are…" Curufin's trying not to be inoffensive. Maglor was patient.

"Yes?"

"Ethereal with your poetry and songs. Your voice brings to mind those things." At least, it can, he thought darkly.

"Ah."

"He likes the escapism." Curufin said, frowning, wandering perhaps it's a transgression to say that now, here, away from… Maglor seemed unmoved.

"So find out," Curufin repeated, "What he wants and wishes, from anyone or anything." Maglor opened his mouth. "Pertinent to these times of course." Curufin added hastily.

"What? Me?"

"You have your voice." Curufin said pointedly, again.

"Yes, it's mine." Maglor agreed.

"Would you rather use it to beguile others into believing what you want?" Maglor flinched.

"At least, this way," Curufin mused, "Time is not lost and we can be surer of the opportunities available to us. What's the trouble? You do admit that he favors you above us." Maglor shifted back and stood abruptly.

"You forget yourself!" Curufin stepped back, eyed warily at the sword girt around Maglor's waist before staring somewhere in the vicinity of Maglor's mouth, pressed thin and white. He lifted his chin: "But it's true." And with that, turned and left, swirling his cape and causing some pieces of paper to flutter onto the ground.

Maglor for a while afterwards, remained standing.

A Maitimo in delirium, thoughts scattered and strewn upon the twilight and perhaps even the daylight path. What is the trouble? What is the trouble indeed, if he was to sooth and interrogate a man in the throes of nightmares? The trouble, the trouble is that it's both for better and for worse. Maglor did not wish to know Maedhros's nightmares. And yet, no Noldo likes to be puzzled for long and Maedhros, for all his suffering, has worn their patience thin.

"That will leave no one available for patrol." There was a bloody memory of coming up one night after hearing a sound. He didn't know his name, but he knew the other's face, mutilated as it was. The man had a mangled thigh, and bled to death in front of him, his sword splintered and with scratch marks. Celegorm had marveled at them at first. The strength in the maw and claws in the beast must be incredible. He had sat, imagining a thousand different forms and ways to trap every one of them. Yet for all his imaginings, until the creature became fantasy, it returned a month after. Night after night, and though it did not kill again, it maimed, and disappeared. The sentries gave it a name, and a legend, though it's Morgoth's beast: a soft tuft of evil smelling dark fur showed as much, the only trace it left, almost in mockery.

Celegorm hated the name, and hated the story, for they say it had been Orome's favorite creature, stolen, tortured, than perverted. And this he hated one element most of all, that the creature went willingly to follow Melkor, who had opened his palms full of bright rhinestones. It reminded him of something…and that's another thought he would rather not follow.

He's beginning to feel very broken in his thinking lately.

"But the idea of it! Going up the mountains? Are you mad? It's summer." Ambarussa's fierce whispers buzzed angrily in his ears.

"What's wrong with summer? The track leads up to the mountains. We're hunters aren't we?" Celegorm aimed for levity and sighed inwardly as silence fell. They are so old already.

They threw him a withering look instead, entirely too reminiscent of Nerdanel. "Orcs."

"We won't be going far." He said, and for all the reasonableness in that sounded like a petulant child.

"We'll need more people." Amras said without turning his head. His twin shrugged while walking, the motion oddly jarring in Celegorm's eyes. It seemed too irreverent, as if it didn't matter to him one way or another, though Amrod slowed his steps. Waiting, it seems, for a decision. Celegorm looked around. It was late in the afternoon, but the sky was clear, and the ground beneath their feet appeared healthy, Too healthy. A streak of pain ran up his arm.

"We can't afford them." Celegorm gritted his teeth, cradling his hand. The red mark seemed to be swelling. Damn those irritating strange plants. "We don't need them either." Huan whined ahead of them, Celegorm strode past them. One menace in a thousand, but it was there and he could face this one if not others.

Looking dubiously at each other first, the Ambarussa shrugged and followed.

Maglor saw Caranthir glowering outside Maedhros's room and went up to him.

"How's he?" He asked softly. Curufin's words gnawed at his thoughts, uncertain as they were. Caranthir paid no mind to Maglor considerations. Likes and dislikes both equally obscure on his serious face, he glanced at the door he left then at the piece of scratch paper in his hand. He's chewing thoughtfully on a new nib, muttering: "no, no, this won't do at all..the quality.."

Maglor tapped his shoulder. Caranthir turned around.

"Eh?"

Maglor made a discreet motion,

"Half-dead and gaining ground." Replied Caranthir without emotion. He's taken to silence now, staring intently at a point past Maglor's shoulder.

After a while Maglor spoke: "Don't say that." He felt his goodwill toward his brother leaving. A fear for Maedhros took its place instead.

"He might as well be." Continued Caranthir, unaware of the horror now climbing and twisting around Maglor's body.

"Now you…" But the words would not come. That apparently seemed more worrisome to Caranthir than Maglor's tone. Caranthir's tone deaf and had been mercilessly mocked for it when younger.

"No, of course I don't want him dead." He said, and peered closely at Maglor's face. "You're not thinking that of course."

"Of course." Muttered Maglor.

"But he is." Caranthir said. It was the most obvious thing in the world to him and Maglor, for some reason, seemed to be unwilling to accept this simple, if harrowing, fact. There was no need for him to look at him like that, as if he did not understand the words coming out of his mouth.

Taking a deep breath, Maglor tried again.

"What's wrong with him?"

"The poison lingers. Not just of the torments, but of being back here again, so suddenly. You've to realize, he did not know this place we call home. We are not as he remembered. He can't reconcile what he wants with what he has, not yet. The soul and body are confused. And I think, we've been asking too much of him, presuming that he would know our wishes and be in accordance with them. But Maedhros always had been an understanding soul, he's groomed for it, so he would wish to become like us, for better or worse, despite feeling disparaged that his wishes are ignored. Take the matter of setting up plumbing for a small example. Now he's entirely estranged from himself." Caranthir stopped as Maglor appeared stricken.

But it's not as if we are killing him, Caranthir thought, Maglor shouldn't look so guilty.

TBC ..next, the Hunt.


End file.
